Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata rejected NOAA’s claim at a Natural Resources subcommittee hearing that President Biden’s planned expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument will have a minimal impact on commercial tuna fishing.
KHJ News Washington DC correspondent Matt Kaye reports…
NOAA Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, Jainey Bavishi insisted no decisions have been made on commercial fishing restrictions in a vastly expanded PRIMNM…
Play Audio
But it was a claim flatly rejected by Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata…
Play Audio
Bavishi insisted NOAA’s developing alternatives after last week’s workshop in American Samoa…and those will be part of a PRIMNM environmental impact statement out for public comment next spring.
And then this exchange between Bavishi and Amata…
Play Audio
But American Tunaboat Association Director William Gibbons-Fly insisted everything he’s seen and heard about the PRIMNM plan, leads him to one conclusion…
Play Audio
And then there’s China, which Gibbons-Fly and Congresswoman Amata argued would take those fish off limits to US boats in the PRIMNM and further expand its influence in the Pacific.
Uifaatali submitted written testimony by Governor Lemanu, stressing the planned monument expansion would destroy American Samoa’s tuna industry and, with it, 5,000 jobs.
